High Flight

by David Hagberg

  “Well, no decisions will be made.”

  “Then what’s the purpose of sending me tomorrow, and not waiting until Wednesday?” Cross asked. They were in the President’s study on the second floor. The afternoon light coming through the bowed windows was gray.

  “They’ll probably hit you with the Russian thing.”

  “Why not call the Russian and Japanese ambassadors over here this afternoon and hash it out?”

  “Wouldn’t accomplish a thing,” President Lindsay replied as he filled his cup from the coffee service. “The trouble is they’re not ready to talk yet. Not to us, not to each other. The step from where you are to where I sit is a hell of a lot bigger than you’d think. George Bush found out that eight years of being vice president did nothing to prepare him for his own presidency.”

  “I don’t have the same ambition, Jim,” Cross said, and he sincerely meant it. He hadn’t told Lindsay yet, but he was considering not running for re-election. He wanted to get back to his law practice in Oklahoma City and to his ranch.

  “That’s not the point. When Enchi talks to you in Tokyo everybody will accept that whatever is said won’t be final in the sense that no decisions will be expected. What they’ll do is float a few trial balloons past you, see what your reactions are so that when the actual talks begin on Thursday they’ll have had time to fine tune their positions. Statecraft.”

  “It was Enchi’s suggestion that you delay your arrival, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “Maybe he’s stalling for time.”

  “That’s exactly what he’s doing, Larry. It’s the CIA’s guess that Enchi is not in complete control of the situation with the street demonstrations, or even his own military. Puts him and his trade agreement in a dangerous position.”

  “Puts us all in a dangerous position. Those are our ships shadowing that submarine.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “While most of the Seventh Fleet is at the dock in Yokosuka. Pull them out of there.”

  “Not unless we have to,” President Lindsay said. “Any further ship movements by us are going to be looked upon with a lot of suspicion.”

  “Some of our ships in port are carrying nuclear weapons. If that were to come out, we’d be in a lot more trouble.”

  The President smiled faintly. “You’re catching on, Larry.”

  Dominique finally agreed that no matter what happened she would stay put at least until Monday morning. McGarvey was driving down to Richmond, where he would catch a flight to Eugene and rent a car from there to Gales Creek.

  The Bureau had a warrant for his arrest, but it simply did not have the manpower to check every single passenger on every single flight from every single airport in the country. With care he didn’t think he would encounter trouble until he got out to Portland, where the Bureau’s efforts would be focused.

  Once he was out of Washington, heading south on I-95, and certain he wasn’t being followed, he pulled in at a truck stop and telephoned Phil Carrara’s wife at her sister’s in Montpelier.

  “He told me to stay up here until Monday,” she said.

  “Have you heard from him since Thursday, JoAnn?”

  “No. Is something wrong, Mac?”

  “Not that I know of, honestly. But when he calls tell him I’ve headed west. He’ll understand.”

  “This is between you and him.”

  “Something like that. We’ll all have dinner next week, and I’ll tell you about it.”

  “Yeah, right,” she said.

  He telephoned Carrara’s house, but there was still no answer, so he phoned Dick Adkins at home. Carrara and Adkins were friends. He hoped it would count for something.

  “Dick, this is Kirk McGarvey. I’m glad I caught you at home.”

  “Jesus H. Christ. The Bureau is turning the country upside down looking for you. Where the hell are you?”

  “I’m trying to find Phil Carrara. I need your help.”

  “You’re the black plague. There’s not a thing I can or will do for you.”

  “He’s on administrative leave. He sent his wife to Montpelier, and he was trying to do something for me. Now he’s disappeared. Do you know where he is?”

  The line was silent for a few seconds. It was possible that Adkins was tracing the call, but McGarvey wasn’t going to stick around much longer.

  “Are you turning yourself in?”

  “No.”

  “Okay,” Adkins said, and he sounded very nervous. “I’m going way the hell out on a limb, but Phil trusted you, so I guess I’ll have to go along. Nobody knows where he is. But one of our Technical Services guys and a surveillance van are missing too.”

  “Does it have to do with Ed Reid?” McGarvey asked.

  “Maybe. Phil asked for the files on Reid and on two Japanese—Sokichi Kamiya and Arimoto Yamagata. But he never called back.”

  McGarvey watched the traffic on the highway. A big eighteen-wheeler pulled in and headed toward the diesel pumps. Kamiya was presumably in Japan, and Yamagata was out West.

  “They probably went after Reid, but they may have run into trouble. There may be a connection between Reid and a former East German assassin.”

  “Bruno Mueller. The French are looking for him.”

  “That’s right, Dick. I want you to convince the Bureau to take a look right now. But there’s something else. Yesterday I followed Reid part of the way out of town, toward Dulles, but I had to break it off because I was being followed by a pair of white Toyota vans. D.C. plates. Possibly Japanese MITI. When I doubled back I lost them.”

  “There’s big trouble brewing over there. Riots in Tokyo and Yokosuka, and there’s a Japanese submarine heading toward Okinawa right now.”

  “What are the Russians doing?”

  “Their entire Far Eastern Command is on alert. It’s probable they’re going to start something because of the Tatar Strait incident. Everybody thinks you’ve got some of the answers.”

  “I wish I did. Just convince the Bureau to check out Reid as soon as possible.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Have them issue an APB on Phil and your Technical Services guy.”

  “What about you?”

  “Depending on what goes down tomorrow, I’ll come in on Monday. You can tell that to the General if you want.”

  “Listen, Mac, if you’re heading out to Portland, they’ve got the place closed up tighter than a gnat’s ass. Something is going on. Ryan was talking with someone over at the Bureau as late as this morning. It’s got them shook up, but I haven’t been put in the loop.”

  “Because you’re friends with Phil.”

  “Probably.”

  “Convince them to go after Reid,” McGarvey said. “In the meantime keep your eyes open.”

  “Good luck, Mac,” Adkins said.

  McGarvey telephoned Yemlin. “We have to meet now, at the same place.”

  “Twenty minutes,” the Russian agreed. He sounded shook up.

  “I’m going home,” Reid said when Mueller called the Lamplighter office to check on him.

  “Why?”

  “Everything is closing in on me. I’m a wreck. I don’t know how I’m going to manage. Christ, do it now!”

  “No. Are you ready for tomorrow? Do you know what to do?”

  “I can’t …”

  “Do you know what to do tomorrow?”

  “Yes,” Reid said, his voice barely above a whisper.

  “Very good. I want you to arrange to meet with some friends this evening for dinner. You will tell them how much you are looking forward to going to Tokyo with the President. How you expect to accomplish great things. Maybe even avert armed conflict.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Be convincing,” Mueller said. “Your life depends on it.”

  Portland had become the center of activity. With less than twenty-four hours to go before America’s VIP flight to Honolulu, San Francisco S-A-C Charles Colberg was
surprised that it had not been canceled. There was a former East German Stasi assassin running around visiting airports and killing people, so something important was going on. Possibly connected with San Francisco’s own troubles over the past weeks with the fire and deaths at InterTech—which supplied subassemblies to Guerin—and the brutal murder and rape of the psychologist aboard her Sausalito houseboat. Louis Zerkel had still not turned up, nor were there any leads in the murders of Zerkel’s supervisor, his wife, and children. He’d been a cop long enough not to ignore the itchy feeling between his shoulders.

  He telephoned Portland S-A-C Jack Franson. “Got your hands full, Jack?”

  “I could use a few extra troops, Chuck. It’s become a goddamned international media circus up here.”

  “I’ll send you half a dozen men. You’ve seen John Whitman’s query about Colonel Mueller. Any early leads?”

  “I saw it, but we haven’t come up with a thing. If Mueller were here, nobody who saw him has come forward yet. But we’re beating the bushes for him and for McGarvey.”

  “Do you want me to come up there?” Colberg asked.

  “No need. It’ll be history by this time tomorrow.”

  “Right.” Colberg sat back in his chair and looked out the window toward Market Street. He was missing something. They all were. Something between McGarvey and Colonel Mueller. There was a connection between the two of them in that they were enemies. Or at least they’d once been on opposite sides of the fence. But what if that were no longer true? Or were they tilting at windmills by trying to manufacture facts out of possible relationships instead of sticking with what they already knew? Basic police work. Jack Franson had his hands full in Portland, which left Colberg on his own in San Francisco. What exactly did they have, he asked himself? Mueller had come to Oakland for some definite purpose that was important enough for him to kill Dick White later. The second element was InterTech and the brutal murders involving Louis Zerkel. Colberg decided he had plenty to keep his field office busy without envying Franson. S-A-Cs of productive offices were first on the promotions list.

  “We’re having dinner with Jim and Amanda at the White House tonight,” the Vice President told his wife.

  “Will it be a pep talk, or will it be last-minute instructions?” Sally Cross asked.

  “Probably a little of both. Are you packed?”

  “Nearly,” she said. “I read the news like everyone else, Larry. Are we being sent over as sacrificial lambs?”

  “Politics aren’t that tough, sweetheart.”

  “I have a bad feeling, that’s all,” she explained. “Women’s intuition.”

  The Vice President forced a laugh. “Well, this time you’re wrong.”

  “I’m leaving for Moscow soon, Kirk. I will not be returning. Do you understand what this means?”

  “Beyond the fact I won’t have a control officer, no, I don’t understand. What are you trying to tell me, Viktor Pavlovich?”

  “The trouble between my country and Japan is very nearly at the breaking point. I can say nothing beyond that.”

  “What about the contract with Guerin?”

  Yemlin shook his head. He looked as if he’d aged ten years in the last couple of weeks. His skin was mottled from the cold, and his pale eyes were watery. “I don’t know.” He stared at the flickering flames on Kennedy’s tomb. “The world changed after that day, Kirk. Especially for Americans. Your age of innocence ended. After tomorrow I think there will be another very big change for you. For all of us.”

  “All your military installations in the region are on alert. Will Russia make a retaliatory strike? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “They provoked us, Kirk. Just as they are provoking your navy even as we speak. We can make no sense of it.”

  “Has Abunai said anything else?”

  Yemlin continued to stare at the flame as if he hadn’t heard the question.

  “It’s very important, Viktor, that I know the name of the Guerin subcontractor that Mintori controls. Many lives are at stake.”

  Yemlin looked at him. “Will you go to Portland for the flight?”

  “Yes.”

  “If I learn something, anything at all, I will get the information to you, Kirk. I swear it.”

  “What we have here is a cascade. One problem causing another,” Delta Chief Mechanic Ted Neidlinger said, inspecting the 522’s carbon-type rotors. There were five in each set of brakes, and they were shot.

  “It’s the anti-lock computer,” the crew chief, Henry Verbeke, agreed. “Both the main and backup failed at the same time. Ate the brakes. Unusual.”

  “I’ll say.” Neidlinger had hung around long enough to make sure that his weekend crew was on top of the problem. They’d pulled the wheels off the mains and disassembled the brakes, then had run the diagnostic tests on the electronics. “Atlanta give us an ETA on the parts?”

  “Midnight,” Verbeke said. “We’ll get it done in time for seven-five-six.”

  “I’ll stop by in the morning to see how it’s coming.”

  McGarvey drove down to Richmond, where he returned his rental car to the agency and checked on flights to Eugene. There were none direct, but a Delta flight was leaving for Des Moines within the hour, with connections via Denver to Eugene. The ticket clerk assured him that the layover in Denver was very short. He would not have to get off the plane.

  “I need to get some sleep,” McGarvey explained. “We partied pretty late last night, and I’ve got back-to-back meetings this evening.”

  “I know what you mean, Mr. Lyman. After Des Moines you should be okay.”

  “Sounds good.” McGarvey handed her his credit card, and the clerk booked him on the flight.

  “I gave you a window bulkhead seat,” she said, stuffing his ticket into a folder.

  “What kind of a plane am I getting?”

  She glanced at her computer. “A 737 to Des Moines, and it looks like a 522 out to Eugene.”

  McGarvey took his single bag through the terminal to the boarding gate. The airport was busy. He wondered what it would be like tomorrow. What airport terminals around the world would be like tomorrow.

  “Far as I can see we might have a bigger problem than I thought,” John Whitman said. “And if I’m right, we have less than twenty-four hours to do something about it.”

  “What have you come up with?” Assistant FBI Director Ken Wood asked.

  “Bruno Mueller was at the Oakland Airport two weeks ago, and it’s strongly possible that he murdered an air traffic control instructor in Chicago last week. We can also place him in Minneapolis, and we have a possible at La Guardia. We’re not sure about New York, but Colonel Mueller is definitely here, and he’s definitely up to something involving our air traffic system. People in Oakland who spoke with him said he seemed to know what he was talking about.”

  “Where’d you get the timetable?”

  “We’re still looking at a connection between Mueller and Guerin. It flies its new plane tomorrow.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Wood said after a moment’s hesitation. “Are you saying that Mueller is working for the Japanese?”

  “Through Ed Reid.”

  “Reid will be on Air Force Two tomorrow, headed for Tokyo. It’d be like jumping into the lion’s den if he were somehow involved.”

  “Goddammit …”

  “I’m not saying you’re wrong,” Wood told him. “But there may be other possibilities that you’re overlooking. McGarvey, for instance. What’s the word on him?”

  “Nothing yet. But he’ll have some of the answers.”

  “Undoubtedly. What are you doing to find him?”

  “He’s damned good, but we expected that. We think he’ll try to make it to Portland for tomorrow’s flight, so we’ve set up a team to watch for him. I won’t guarantee he’ll be stopped, but if he somehow manages to get through he’s even better than we thought.”

  “What about Mueller?”

  “We’re watchi
ng every major airport, but that’s about the limit of our personnel. As it is we’re stretched thin.”

  “Okay, John, you came up here with something specific in mind. Let’s have it.”

  “If Guerin is the target—I mean beyond the maiden flight tomorrow of America—then it could mean that all its airplanes are in danger. So ground the fleet.”

  “Impossible.”

  “All I’m asking is twenty-four hours, Ken.”

  “Then what?” Wood demanded. “Unless you come up with McGarvey or Mueller, we’d be back to square one on Monday. Even if I thought Harding would go along with us, and that he could convince the FAA, which I don’t think would happen, what you’re suggesting simply wouldn’t work.”

  “It’d be better than nothing,” Whitman said bitterly.

  “Find McGarvey and Mueller. Whatever else happens, find them!”

  “Any word on Phil Carrara yet?” John Whitman asked.

  “We were about to make a formal request of the Bureau,” Howard Ryan said. He was in his office at Langley.

  “He’s definitely missing?”

  “Along with one of our Technical Services people and some equipment. A surveillance van, actually. I’ll fax you the material immediately.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Ryan. We’ll do what we can.”

  “It is almost time for Morning Star.” Sokichi Kamiya’s voice was recognizable but hollow because of the encryption device.

  “I understand,” Yamagata replied nervously. When the signal was up-linked to the U.S. GeoPositioning Satellite constellation, a spike would be sent to every satellite navigation set in use on the North American continent. Every airplane using the system would receive an eleven-millisecond modulated pulse, but only Guerin airplanes equipped with the InterTech heat monitor /alarm subassembly and explosive thermocouple frame would be affected. Then airplanes would fall out of the sky like “starlit raindrops on a barren plain.” Kamiya’s words. For as long as the up-link remained open the pulse would be sent. The destruction, the confusion, the anguish would be awesome. Far worse than Pearl Harbor.